Monday, February 14, 2011

Hallway Math

Twice a week I take my little darlings to the computer lab. In my brilliance I signed up for times right after lunch. The theory was that we wouldn't waste a lot of time wandering back and forth through the hallways. The reality is that now we have to stop and wash our hands because I refuse to take them to the lab after lunch without washing hands. Sigh.

So, twice a week we have time standing around waiting for our friends to wash hands. It's a surprisingly long process. On my lazy days we all stand around and they whisper (hopefully) to each other.

On my better days we play games. Our most recent, and my current favorite, involves me asking them to show a number with their fingers. Then, show it to me another way. Then another way. We try to find all the possible ways to show a number.

Everyone can play at the same time and the only talking is me saying a number and telling them to show it another way. Hopefully it's also helping them cement the idea that numbers can be built in many different ways.

While we're loving this game right now, if you have any others that would be good for first graders, please share! Ideally they allow everyone to be involved and are pretty quiet. Thanks!

4 comments:

Anonymous
said...

One game we play in the hallway is "How many are hiding?" We start playing with one hand. I show a number. They show how many are hiding. For example, I show 3, they respond with 2. When they're good at 5, I move on to both hands.

On days when I don't feel like leading the game, they can play Magic 6 silently in pairs. It is played like rock paper scissors, except each child shows a number between 1 & 5. They add them together (in their heads). If the answer is 6, they win (and give a silent cheer). If it's not 6, they try again. This can also be Magic 11, if each child uses both hands and makes a number between 1 & 10.

I don't have any game recs, but have heard of the same hand-washing situation. Baby wipes were the answer for one teacher.... a stack in the refillable containers can be sliced in half, too, so each kid gets half a baby wipe.